Claramarie Burns


Three Poems



                in jar         in music box         with hands
                to ears      negligent transparency impressed      by
                blue fresh tree nerves          *mnsp   indigo transparency
in mountains of light       in erect treason        pale    cut cut    bamboo
you can't break them those field-poppy thoroughbreds     marvelous corona
old day    old morning    old gold crushed         swarms of lily-of-the-valley
                white-arc-shine descent       come     come to the water
                this clear silver shine field                & simmers & steams
                over marshes     call of birds    insects        precise raindrop lens
                open to tattered secret kiss     unreliability & hoe of desire
                blue & acacia yellow-flowered         touch the blue tips      open
                flashed field wires flare     empty mountain                litter the
                strange rice over the gateway     the crow ultramarine sky
                railroads that parallel the heart      clasp the shadow to the flower
               foolishly broken tower bend       clavicle!     all those girls in bright bunches
                & laughing soggy clouds        vague rice distance of crickets & footsteps
                clip    clip    clip    clip    clip    clip    clip    rows & rows of pale sky    clip!
                lattice-layers      not spring but a variation of August-lid bowls & cups
hot hollow blooms high on narrow stalks       continuous peas        crow
in mountains of light            negligent transparency


*

she finds night in her wings     hides
surface beneath soft touch     violin-string bees in
harbor of the fastened mouth     fill the spokes of the
world aviary with honey stars         day's end     whistlefall
                the queen of the four snow-filled horizons closes
                her ship's wings                in sun-insulated arch
                &    she ends a little further on
day on her cheeks between the leaves       eternity on a chip of darkness
      sky-blue goats in her eyes &
electric hats
        she minds
                   maritime may-dove ferns wave
wave fern in the depths of her mirror
                   hears small sound         twice in the cold-stopped desert
draped over instrument panel in old airplane stutter
polished                   seduction of tunes dripping emptied
through the keyholes
what inner stair      rope-ladder      handkerchief silence
eats her words       her cushioned path a necklace of sighs

                               she weeps cries of birds
                               barricades upright necessity loud loud
                               stop the wind for the loud perhaps song!
                               it happens to the squeezed sponge

she will disturb the wet, crouched, recalcitrant abyss
hidden between the spread out leaves she perches on
her eyes come loose     she
in the depths of her mirror
    polite violin      happens in imitation
she plagiarizes freely     indecently     & without shame


*

                this garment of another's death
                so slight visible at early dusk in
the mirror experiment        the brilliance of doubt
night falls deeper in its common brightness of mumbled
secrets       space of decease         step over the sill
into clear spells of illegibility or fame     you may
     incarnate denial again & again         perched in the sharp memory
of corn-hair architectures      while cymbals ring in the throat
       in the mouth      of evening's wakeful dream
tenement     (wakeful)    of the masque      contemporary
stage whisper & modeler of antique
resonance             do you know where it is?
        or why?      to fasten the clasp?



Claramarie Burns is a poet and translator who lives in Denver, Colorado, where she writes, studies Sanskrit, and reflects on intersections of human, natural, and constructed existence. A graduate of the Jack Kerouac School MFA program at Naropa University, her work has appeared in Poetry New York and Bombay Gin. Other published works include two chapbooks, Phantastic Voyage, and Photoinsensitive, and two translations from the German, Peck Me Up, My Wing, selections from the work of Friederike Mayröcker, and The Two Hands of the Sparrowhawk, by Helmut Salzinger. Burns is also a self-declared linguaphile, artist, gardener, and food sustainability activist.
 
 
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